sarce
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2013
- Messages
- 1,504
Back in SE PA for the weekend and this week, so I spent most of my weekend exploring new water in familiar places. Although I caught some trout, most of the interesting stuff was warmwater so I put it here. Saturday morning I decided to investigate around the mouth of a trib on the W Br. Brandywine. There are a few native brookies higher up in the trib but after getting skunked here in the winter with Foxgap we came up with a theory that maybe the brookies spend the colder months in the Brandywine.
I fished two nice riffles and a long pool near the mouth of the trib and didn't turn up any brookies, but did catch a nice rock bass (1) and a bunch of fallfish. I then fished my way up the tributary through some sections I had never explored before because I assumed the brookies didn't like the habitat there. This turned out to be the case as I found some large, deep undercut holes (2) but no trout. In addition to schools of chubs, shiners, and rosyside dace, I did see two smallmouths and a small catfish of some sort which tells me this section of the creek is too warm and silty for brook trout. healthy stream but just not trout water. I briefly fished the upper part on my way out and saw about a dozen brookies but spooked every single one of them.
Sunday was a little more interesting. I started out on a small freestone stream (4) in the morning and caught 5 gorgeous wild browns (5) and a SMB (3). There is a fairly large pond next to the stream that I always avoided fishing because of a massive beehive on the path to the bank, but that has disappeared so I decided to give it a shot. It was AWESOME fishing! In about an hour and a half I landed a 14" LMB (6), around 10 bluegills, 4 crappie (8), and 2 pumpkinseeds (7). I was using a woolly bugger at first and then switched to a panfish popper and was surprised that the crappie were hitting both flies. All of the bluegills took the popper.
In the afternoon I moved to a different wild trout stream that also has a pond next to it. Lots of kids were fishing the pond and catching a few bass and bluegills. I stayed there until about 4 pm picking off a few bluegills here and there and watched another guy reel in the big snapping turtle that rules the pond!
Finally went down to the creek and fished dries hoping for some wild browns. It was obvious from bootprints that someone had been there before me and I hardly saw any trout. My first and last fish here was a 4" brown that took a sulphur dry. It was a great way to end one of the most relaxing weekends fishing I've ever had! Hope you enjoy the pics.
I fished two nice riffles and a long pool near the mouth of the trib and didn't turn up any brookies, but did catch a nice rock bass (1) and a bunch of fallfish. I then fished my way up the tributary through some sections I had never explored before because I assumed the brookies didn't like the habitat there. This turned out to be the case as I found some large, deep undercut holes (2) but no trout. In addition to schools of chubs, shiners, and rosyside dace, I did see two smallmouths and a small catfish of some sort which tells me this section of the creek is too warm and silty for brook trout. healthy stream but just not trout water. I briefly fished the upper part on my way out and saw about a dozen brookies but spooked every single one of them.
Sunday was a little more interesting. I started out on a small freestone stream (4) in the morning and caught 5 gorgeous wild browns (5) and a SMB (3). There is a fairly large pond next to the stream that I always avoided fishing because of a massive beehive on the path to the bank, but that has disappeared so I decided to give it a shot. It was AWESOME fishing! In about an hour and a half I landed a 14" LMB (6), around 10 bluegills, 4 crappie (8), and 2 pumpkinseeds (7). I was using a woolly bugger at first and then switched to a panfish popper and was surprised that the crappie were hitting both flies. All of the bluegills took the popper.
In the afternoon I moved to a different wild trout stream that also has a pond next to it. Lots of kids were fishing the pond and catching a few bass and bluegills. I stayed there until about 4 pm picking off a few bluegills here and there and watched another guy reel in the big snapping turtle that rules the pond!
Finally went down to the creek and fished dries hoping for some wild browns. It was obvious from bootprints that someone had been there before me and I hardly saw any trout. My first and last fish here was a 4" brown that took a sulphur dry. It was a great way to end one of the most relaxing weekends fishing I've ever had! Hope you enjoy the pics.
